The Doctor Meets Bela
by g.r.harkins
Summary: The Doctor and his companions meet a mysterious figure. Rory and the Doctor feud over what to do with him.


All a man's power could be seeped from him like sand through a sieve. One only had to set him against an ocean. The sea was so indifferent, yet its victories were so viciously and oppressively final. At least, that's how it seemed as he stood looking out at it, the waves washing over his feet. They stung him like cruel taunts, all the more so when he considered how insignificant he felt against the ocean's vastness. Here it was lapping at his toes preeningly, but it was all a mockery made just for him. Some men said it humbled them, the ocean's vastness, but it only made him feel small.

He stood there for a moment, listening and letting the sun bake his head and his wispy hair, watching the gulls overhead. Then he waddled out a few meters and, with a graceful swoop, he dove headlong into the ocean. He swam hard, using all of his strength to drown out the frustration and isolation of the damned island, but even swimming was not enough. Through the sound of the water washing around his ears a hateful thought rose up in spite of him. _He_ would not have to swim out as far to drown himself as another man would. The thought was soon dumbly thwarted by his addled mind and the whooshing water.

Once he felt he was out far enough, he rose up and turned around to take one last look at the island where his life, once so full of promise, had withered. He was always surprised, once he'd gotten out this far, at just how quiet the sea was. On more than one occasion he'd come out here to end it all only to be lulled regretfully, serenely to resignation before swimming sullenly back to shore. Back on the island, the ocean always seemed like such a noisy place from which nothing but a deafening swell and rumbling storms arose. Out here all that could be heard were the waves quietly sloshing and slapping against each other.

All the more reason why the faint sounds of a warbly horn caught his attention.

He looked back to the shore, to the place from which the sounds had seemed to come and, though the rolling waves intermittently obscured his view, he swore he saw a blue rectangular solid pulse into existence from nothing. He watched a little longer, trying to convince himself that he was not going mad. Another wave rolled across his vision and then suddenly a trio of bodies appeared next to the solid. He sat there for a very long time, riding the waves, calculating, and watching to make sure the vision of the solid and the bodies did not fade away just as suddenly and ethereally as it had appeared. He watched the bodies move about on the rocks languorously, apparently with no mission in place. Then, having not yet completely made up his mind about the vision, he made the only move he felt was truly reasonable.

He began to drown.

"Here we are, Ponds! Venice Beach, 1962!" The Doctor burst out of the TARDIS with arms and grin fully extended, looking more ready to ride a velocipede around Victorian England than take a dip in the sea. Amy and Rory followed behind him, side-by-side, Amy managing to look both annoyed and amused, Rory looking as though he were expecting a guillotine blade to fall on him at any moment.

Amy latched a thumb under the shoulder strap of her suit. Her orange hair blew in the wind and stuck to her face like cob webs. "Very good, Doctor, but this looks a little drab for Venice Beach. Rory and I were kind of expecting surf-rock, _Endless Summer_…"

"Bikinis..." Rory said, finishing her thought, and Amy turned on him with invisible death rays emanating from her eyes. Rory shuddered ridiculously, wiggling the horse floaty he wore around his waist. "Because this was the year they were invented, I mean."

"Nice try, Rory," said the Doctor whipping out his sonic screwdriver, "but I'm afraid you're off by about sixteen years." The doctor's sonic began whirring as he waved it through the air, catching the wind. "Sixteen years, three months, eighteen days, and three and one half hours… give or take. Maybe? I think. Possibly?"

"Not that anyone's been counting," Amy quipped.

The Doctor's gaze froze for a moment, his arms and legs cocked like he'd just stepped in something foul. "No, of course not." He bolted straight, tugged his tweeds, and just as quickly he rediscovered his line of thought. "No, there's been a mistake. I can't seem to get a lock on the time." Then, more to himself, he muttered, "You tell the TARDIS one thing, and she just does her own thing. Where have you taken me, girl? More importantly, _when _have you taken me?" The Doctor then looked over at Amy and Rory and realized he had been talking to himself. "Ehem. Yes. I mean, no. No, the air here is not right," he said, looking at his sonic. Then he smacked his lips together and stuck out his tongue. "It tastes… solid. Too broom-y to be California air."

"Broom-y?" asked Rory incredulously, "As in…" Rory mimed sweeping.

"That's the only thing that doesn't seem right?" Amy asked incredulously. She held out her arms to highlight their surroundings, and the Doctor was abashed at his apparent myopia. The shore they stood on was barren, covered in great dark slabs of stone that radiated back the sun's heat like the coils of a stovetop. Surrounding them, instead of smiling, tanned Californians, were great rock faces and huge boulders, made apparently of the same material as the surrounding shore. They jutted out so precipitously that it was as if a giant's fingers had reached up from underneath the Earth's crust and displaced the boulders into their current lofty positions. Beyond what they saw of the shore, their vision of the surrounding land mass was obscured by yet more dark cliffs and rocky crags.

"Er, well..." mumbled the Doctor and Rory, stammering over each other.

Pushing past both of them, Amy said, "Either way, there's the ocean. And here's something like a beach. We've earned a vacation, wouldn't you say?" The Doctor and Rory shrugged. Neither of them had the temerity to contradict Amy. She made her way out further onto the rocks and the Doctor and Rory went back inside the TARDIS to retrieve a few supplies. Rory thought to himself, "Sunscreen. Lots and lots of sunscreen," and the Doctor thought mostly about cakes and star maps, but deep inside there was a sub-process (there was always a sub-process) working on the problem of where and when they had ended up.

The group piddled about, none of them in a particular hurry to accomplish anything. Rory smeared excessive amounts of sunscreen across his face and began fumbling with a portable grill. The Doctor mumbled and gesticulated wildly by a boulder for several minutes then mumbled and gesticulated more civilly next to the TARDIS. Amy had only just begun tanning on one side when she bolted upright. "Shh! Quiet down, you two!" The Doctor stopped orating dramatically to no one in particular and looked in Amy's direction. Rory stopped bumbling noisily with the grill and look around in all directions.

"What are we listening for?" Rory asked. The other two shushed him loudly.

At the same time they all heard a faint cry for help and turned their heads to the sea. They saw a small figure, barely visible over the undulations of the water, struggling to keep afloat. "He's drowning," Rory said and, suddenly heroic, ran in after the figure. The Doctor and Amy watched from the shore as Rory thrashed desperately out to sea. Eventually the ebbing tide made him only intermittently visible, but they saw well enough to see Rory throw the figure around his shoulders and begin swimming him to shore. Once they were finally close enough to seem out of danger, Amy breathed a quiet sigh of relief, and she and the Doctor ventured out to help pull them both onto the beach.

"He needs air," Rory gasped and, despite being nearly out of breath himself, began breathing oxygen into the man's mouth. After what seemed like a gratuitous amount of time, Rory said, "I can't revive him, I can't draw enough wind in myself."

"Oh, move out of the way, you lutz." Amy pushed Rory aside and began administering breaths herself. After only a few tries the man spluttered back to life, turned himself over, and began coughing up copious amounts of water. When he was finished, he looked up toward Amy and, still slightly out of breath, said, "Thank you."

The man was rather short and pasty looking, which struck Amy as odd considering that the look of his scant clothing suggested he'd been on the island for a while. He was balding, and what remained of his dark hair was sopping wet and stuck like brown kelp to his skull. Despite looking tired, his eyes were unnerving and serious. There was something in them that belied the impression his soft, pale body gave off.

"Don't mention it," Amy said.

"Really," he said, "I could have drowned. You saved me from making a terrible mistake."

"Is drowning ever not a mistake?" Rory asked. The man glanced at Rory with just enough darkness in his eyes for Rory to recognize his error.

"I was beginning to think no one was coming for me," the man said pitifully. "Then from out there in the water I saw you arrive as if from nowhere. I thought I was hallucinating. Once I felt certain I was not, I tried to swim to you, but I realized that I could not get myself back to shore. I was fatigued. I had tried to swim out as far as I could, far enough not to be able to get back…" He trailed off sullenly.

"How long have you been here?" Amy asked

"Years, I think. I lost track long ago."

"More importantly, who are you and how did you get here?" The Doctor said with a slight edge in his tone that Rory felt was a bit harsh considering the man had nearly died just a few moments ago.

"My name is Bela, but unfortunately I do not know much more than that. I was a sailor before, I remember leaving port from France. I know that much. And I recall that I was in some sort of accident at sea…"

"How unfortunate," said The Doctor distractedly.

Rory cleared his throat, "Well, you're obviously a desert island survivor. Imagine your luck that we just happened to arrive on this particular island, the one you've been stranded on." He hoped to illicit some relief and good humor from Bela with this last remark but, not getting any, he just put his hand on Bela's shoulder.

"How fortunate," said The Doctor like a broken record, his demeanor frozen in apparent thoughtfulness.

"You can stay with us," said Rory standing up and looking at Amy and the Doctor. "You can freshen up, stay with us tonight, and in the morning we can figure out how to get you home, wherever that is."

"I would be most grateful," said Bela.

The group began walking back toward the TARDIS with Rory and Bela leading the way, Rory's lanky gait and baggy beach shorts contrasting sharply with Bela's short stomps and ragged attire. Amy and The Doctor trailed behind at a distance. Out of the corner of her eye Amy peeked at The Doctor and whispered.

"You know something, don't you, funny man?"

"I only know I don't trust any man who claims not to know who he is."

Upon returning to the camp, Bela seemed willing to engage the group in conversation, answering questions about how he had survived on the island, where he'd found fresh drinking water, etc. For a while he even seemed friendly, indulging Rory's need to include him in their beach activities. For the most part Rory stuck close to Bela while Amy tanned or read on the warm rocks. The Doctor continued pacing near some bleached stones further up the beach, mumbling and grumbling. He occasionally looked over to Rory and Bela.

After a pick-up game of volleyball, in which the doctor was repeatedly bowled over while giving menacing looks to Bela, Amy, having been declared the winner, returned to her book, and the doctor followed.

"Don't you think it's a bit odd?" The doctor asked Amy as behind them Rory got himself tangled up trying to disassemble the volleyball net.

"Do I think what is odd?"

"Don't you think it's odd that Bela isn't more insistent that we get him off this island? He's only been stranded for years apparently. He was even desperate enough to end it all. Now, despite being a little quiet, he seems perfectly willing to wait while we have our day at the beach. He hasn't even asked if we know what island he is on."

"Well, perhaps he is just happy to see some new faces. And he did say he doesn't remember much from his life before; maybe he is telling the truth. Doesn't leave him much to get back to, does it? I could understand not being in a great hurry to get off this island even if he hates it here. There's nothing to leave it for."

The doctor looked long and hard at Bela before answering. "Something just doesn't add up here. Something isn't right." And in the doctor's old, old eyes, hidden amongst his youthful features, Amy thought she could see a vortex of ethereal intensity that seemed to roar and whisper all at once. She was used to seeing this look by now, but she always wondered whether, to the doctor, it _felt_ like a roar or a whisper. Perhaps it was both. Like always, just as quickly as the Doctor would blink his eyes and give her a wry smile, the illusion was gone, and she was back to being Amy Pond, and he her Doctor.

Having managed to get himself untangled from the volleyball net with some help from Bela, Rory returned to their section of the rocky beach with a bucket, two small shovels, and some sand castle molds.

"Have you ever made a sandcastle before?" Rory asked.

"No, the concept seems foreign to me," Bela confessed robotically.

"Well, building a sand castle is really quite complicated. There's an art to it. But lucky for you, you've got the master here to teach you. You see…" Rory began describing to Bela the intricacies of sand castle construction, but after a while he noticed that Bela kept looking over at the TRADIS.

"Is everything alright Bela? Gosh, listen to me. Of course everything isn't alright. You've been stranded here for years and now that rescue has shown up, all we're doing is showing you sandcastles and playing games. You must think we're incredibly selfish."

"I was just wondering how you got here, actually. Out in the water I heard a strange trumpeting, and when I looked back to the shore I saw you and your group on the beach with that blue box. I keep thinking to myself that that blue box must be your ship. I see no other way you could have arrived, no boats or rafts. And yet such a small box surely couldn't carry three passengers and all of this cargo. Yet I just saw you go inside of it with your large gaming net and come out with your sand kit. How could such a small transport carry all of you? How did it – and you – get here?"

Rory looked at the sand, wondering what to say to Bela. At last he murmured, "It is a transport. It's what we will use to get you off of the Island."

"I would love to know more about it. That key around your neck, for instance. Does it open the transport?" Bela asked.

"Well, yes, but err… I don't believe I am at liberty to tell you anymore." Rory said, with clear reluctance. "So much of it even I don't understand. Let's just keep on with this sand castle. Perhaps the Doctor will tell you more about it before we leave."

Bela took note of this, and resumed watching Rory build his sandcastle.

That night the group cooked franks and hamburgers. Bela, though hesitant, seemed happy to have a meal. Rory used beach wood to build a fire, and the four sat around it eating and telling stories, though Bela just listened.

When it was time to put the grill away, Rory asked the Doctor to help. As they walked up the flat rocky surface toward the TARDIS, Rory said, "Bela's been asking about the… T-A-R-D-I-S." He glanced over his shoulder as he said this to make sure they were out of ear shot. "Maybe we could let him have a look? He'll have to find out sooner or later if we are going to get him out of here." When Rory's question was met with silence, he asked again, "We are planning on taking him off the island, right? I mean, we can't just leave him here. We have to help him."

"We'll see," The Doctor said darkly.

"What do you mean?" Rory asked, clearly upset but trying to keep his voice down. He dropped his end of the grill and it crashed against the door of the TARDIS. Bela and Amy looked over from back by the fire.

"We're fine, We're fine," Rory and The Doctor said awkwardly, waving back towards the fire. "What do you mean?" Rory began again. "Bela's a victim. We have to help him don't we, Doctor? We could go back in time, find out who he was, return him to his family…"

"The fact that we don't know who he is is precisely what I am worried about," said the Doctor. "He could have been hiding here, waiting for someone like us to come."

"Hiding alone? Stranded on a desert island? Because that seems like a good plan, does it? To just go and get yourself lost and wait for The Doctor to show up?"

The Doctor said nothing.

"So we're just going to leave him here?"

"I want to find out more about him first, Rory."

"How do you propose we do that? He has amnesia."

"There's something he isn't telling us. Something he's hiding." At that moment, the Doctor eyes, looking behind Rory, grew wide and he bolted up, dropping his end of the grill and causing it to smash Rory's toes.

"Yaark!" yelped Rory. "Sorry for being so insistent, but you didn't have to do that."

"Will you hand me that telescope." The Doctor, having apparently not even heard Rory, pointed at a pile of instruments near Rory's side of the TARDIS.

Rory picked up the telescope from near the top of the pile. "Why do we need this?"

"Just for fun."

Then the doctor began skipping ridiculously back toward Amy and Bela, waving the telescope over his head. Once he and Rory had made it back to the fireside, the Doctor, barely containing his excitement, asked, "How about we look at the stars?"

From a distance the group looked like an 18th century oil painting. The doctor led the way lit from above by the bright star light, an Enlightenment wizard with his scientific instrument strapped to his back. His three pupils followed behind single file, novices eager to be instructed by a scientific master. The Doctor halted suddenly, causing a small pileup of backs and heels behind him. Then he turned around, flashing a white grin that deflated slightly as his gaze traveled from Rory and Amy to Bela. "Here we are Ponds! …ehem… and Bela."

"Where is 'here' exactly, doctor?" asked Amy.

"Here is the spot with the best view. Now, gather round."

With a pump of his arm a tripod extended beneath the scope, and he planted each of its legs into the ground. He bent over to peer into the eyepiece and began mumbling to himself. After a few moments of staring, adjusting his sights, and constant argumentative murmuring, he looked up again at the group and smiled nervously. "Heh," he said and looked back into his scope. Then, he swung it around violently, nearly knocking everyone upside their head.

"Doctor!" Amy cried.

"Sorry, sorry. Just trying to get my bearings. Here we are." He said, having moved the scope around exactly 360 degrees. "Now, Amy, look in there and tell me what you see."

Amy looked into the scope and saw nothing. "I don't see anything, Doctor."

"Hnh. Yes? Let me look… Oh wait! Here's the problem." The doctor flung away the lens cap. "Now look."

"Oh, brother," Groaned Rory, "How did you just find where to look if you…" but he was interrupted by Amy.

"Oh my, Doctor. That's beautiful."

Through the scope lens Amy saw what looked like a massive, multi-colored, oozing zenia. Flares of rainbow colored fire would grasp outward from its center and hook back, causing the entire mass to shift colors like a cuttlefish

"Isn't it beautiful? One of the great sights of the universe. Let everyone have a look now." Amy moved aside and let Bela look. "Might have to adjust the height a bit, Bela," said the Doctor watching him closely. Bela gave a sideways glance to the Doctor, but looked into the scope anyway.

"What is it?" Amy asked.

"It's the Roach Nebula. Not a beautiful name, but I didn't get to name it. A man by the name of Blatherus Grunting did. Well, I say a man. More of an insect, really, but a brave and valiant insect.

"I say, Doctor, this must be a very powerful telescope," said Bela. "I've seen scopes before that can show you things in the heavens, things that are difficult to see with the naked eye, but never have they shown anything so clearly, so brilliantly as this scope can."

"Indeed it is a powerful telescope," said the Doctor now snatching it away and with a flick retracting its numerous pieces.

"Hey," said Rory, "I didn't get to have a look."

The Doctor hesistated. A flash of horror, embarrassment, sympathy, and finally resignation moved across the Doctor's face in the span of about half a second before he spoke again. "Indeed it is a powerful telescope, Bela," he said, eliciting a "Good grief!" from Rory as Amy gave him a rather hollow smile and pat on the back.

"So powerful, in fact, that it sees not only through space, but through time. You see the last time the Roach Nebula was visible to anyone would have been, relatively speaking, roughly the year 1825 on Earth. It's so far away, of course, that no one alive on earth at that time would have seen it. Its light would not have reached Earth yet. However, my scope here can see not only through space, but through time as well. And based on the time and distance adjustments that needed to be made on my scope in order to see the nebula, I figure the year on Earth right now should be about late 1819 or early 1820, just before the nebula is destroyed completely by a massive burst of energy from a nearby sun. Is that about right, Bela?"

"I wouldn't know, sir," Bela said with beads of sweat forming on his brow.

"And based on our positioning, I would say we must be somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, south of the Equator. Maybe a ways off the coast of Africa? 'Bout 1800 kilometers? Perhaps even on the Island of St. Helena?"

A wave of nerves clearly washed over Bela at this point, though he concealed it well.

"Hmm… St. Helena in the 1820's. Well, if that's correct then we could expect to find some awfully famous company somewhere here on the Island. Tell, me, Bela. Your name: Isn't it an anagram of 'Elba'?

Rory inhaled sharply.

"Alright. What do you want?" said Bela angrily. "Assassination? Hmm? Who sent you here?"

"My gosh!" said Amy. "I can't believe I didn't see it before. I mean, you look just like him - Napoleon Bonaparte, that is."

"I should hope I look just like him," griped Bela. "I am him."

"Well, I'll be," said Rory. "I'm speechless, Bela, …I mean Napoleon. I've never met such a famous historical figure before. Well, I mean, I've met a few I suppose - traveling with the Doctor - but it's always quite astonishing to meet someone like yourself. I mean, you're a great romantic hero! Why…"

"Hero?!" cried the doctor incredulously, interrupting Rory, and in his voice and eyes was a gale force of fury that could cause whole army's to turn heel at the sight and sound of it from light-years away. "This is a man who attempted to conquer all of Europe, might've been all of the world if he'd had the chance. A tyrant, a self-proclaimed emperor! This man is no Romantic Hero, Rory, he's a villain! And his intentions remain villainous to this very day, isn't that right, _Bela_!" This last was spit out with vitriol that only an ancient man, a man who'd seen as much tragedy and suffered as much loss as could be fit into 900 years, could muster. "I've watched you with Rory today, manipulating him, pulling his heart strings, taking advantage of his many, many, _many_ weaknesses."

"HEEEY!" cried Rory whinily.

"You have something planned, and damned if we are going to stay long enough to find out what. Come on, Rory, Amy. We're leaving." The Doctor stormed away. Rory and Amy reluctantly followed.

"Wait! Wait," cried Napoleon. "You're right. I had a plan. I was manipulating you, Rory. I was going to wait until the others had gone asleep, and then I was going to have you show me your transport. I've piloted vessels before. Yours is unlike anything I've ever seen, but I thought that maybe I could figure out how to use it."

The Doctor, Rory, and Amy watched Napoleon in silence. They watched his shoulders slump forlornly, and they listened to his ragged breathing, which for the first time sounded belabored, even sickly, a sign Rory and Amy took as whimpering caused by a genuine display of emotion. Then, just as the Doctor was about to respond, Napoleon spoke again.

"I'm sorry," he said in a voice that was barely audible. "I'm sorry for manipulating you. Please don't leave me here. I have changed. I just want to go to Europe. I just want to see my family, my son again."

"Why should we believe you? How do we know you are not trying to manipulate us now?" asked the Doctor.

"Let me prove it to you. Stay another day. I can take you to my home here. You can see for yourselves that I am a changed man."

The Doctor, Rory, and Amy looked at each other, and Rory was the first to speak. "We will stay, but only for another day. If you can't prove to us in that amount of time that you have changed, then tomorrow we leave without you." He said this looking to The Doctor and Amy, who looked at each other and then nodded their heads to Rory in confirmation.

"Alright then," Napoleon said. "Follow me. I can give you a place to stay for the night. Then, tomorrow I can show you my new life."

With that, Napoleon set off up the beach. Rory, Amy, and The Doctor hesitated for a moment, sharing tentative looks. Then, together, they set out after the man who had once brought a continent to its knees.

The darkness that surrounded them as they trudged across the island was oppressive. With such little moonlight or starlight, the only sense they had to go off of was, of course, their own sense of being propelled forward, though in this darkness, without any visual sense of the space through which they moved, it was difficult to tell how far exactly one had moved with each tentative step. To Amy, the sensation was rather like being a bug that toils along industriously across the palm of a hand only to be flipped in any direction and duped into traversing the same distances over and over again.

And Napoleon, she worried, was most likely their hand.

It was difficult to see the emperor up ahead of them, but even in the dim starlight Amy could not help feeling impressed at the enormous change she sensed in the man. Napoleon qua Bela had been awkward and taciturn. Napoleon qua Napoleon, though a fallen emperor, was perhaps the most imposing and graceful man she had ever seen, and she, of course, had a very privileged perspective on incredible beings, having traveled the universe with the most incredible of incredible beings for some time now.

It was only as she reflected on this that she realized that the darkness directly ahead of them was now empty. They were following no one.

"We're following no one." Rory said dumbly somewhere in the dark. "I've lost him."

"HALLO!" shouted the doctor right in Rory's ear. "OVER HERE!"

Rory stuck a finger in his ear. "Sheesh! What was that for? It may be dark, but I can still hear."

"No, Rory, over there, up ahead of us," said Amy. In the darkness they could see a little light in the distance with what appeared to be a man standing next to it.

"HALLO!" shouted the Doctor again, and the group grew quiet to listen.

"Who goes there?" came the reply.

"I'm the Doctor, and these are my friends Rory and Amy."

"Which Doctor? Doctor who?" the voice called.

"The Doctor!" cried the Doctor, apparently relieved. "These are my friends, Ror-" the doctor was interrupted by a muffled call from the other voice. "Excuse me? say again?" asked the Doctor in reply.

"Which doctor? Are you an inhabitant of the island?"

"Well, not currently, but it does seem like it might be a nice place to call home for a while."

They were met with silence from the other voice. Then Rory whispered to the group, "Does that man have a weapon? It looks like he has a weapon. Should we be hailing a man with a weapon?"

"Most likely a soldier," said the Doctor, "to keep the prisoner from escaping. Some good they've done."

"Approach and give the countersign," cried the voice.

"Countersigns, see? He's a soldier," said the Doctor to Rory and Amy. "We have no countersign!" he cried cheerily to the soldier, without looking away from Rory and Amy.

"Remain where you are or you will be fired upon. You are under arrest."

"Oh, sheesh," sighed Rory.

"What now, Doctor?" asked Amy.

"We will stay where we are and be arrested."

"But, Doctor…"

"Don't worry, Ponds. I know what I'm doing – I think. No wait, I forgot something. Blast! Just like me to leave something at home that I'll need later."

Rory and Amy looked in each other's direction and, through the darkness, thought they saw their own expression mirrored on the other's face.

"Oh, here they are!" The Doctor pulled some small cakes out of his jacket, and Rory and Amy looked at him incredulously. "What? Can't go to jail without snacks." When he saw their unchanging expressions, he looked down ashamedly at his cakes, mumbled sheepishly to no one in particular, and began to fiddle with the wrappers. Meanwhile, the light from the sentry's lantern crept over the landscape as he grew nearer. Amy thought to herself that she was about to go to jail with a time traveler who brought along cakes just in case.

Spending a night in jail did not agree with Rory. True, there weren't any inmates other than himself, Amy, and the Doctor; and even though the cell was a bit dusty in a typically 19th century fashion (or so Rory imagined), it was considerably more peaceful than a jail cell from his own time (or so Rory imagined). So peaceful, in fact, that at times Rory thought, "I could get used to this." Nevertheless, the lack of a comfy place to sit or lie down took its toll on Rory, who so very much liked having a comfy place to sit and lie down. And when the jailers (actually quite nice blokes) came to release them in the morning, Rory hoped, slightly irrationally, that they would be taken someplace nice to properly rest.

His hope was not entirely irrational it turned out, for they _would_ be taken someplace relatively nice. Upon hearing of this, Rory would think, "Hey, I'm not entirely irrational!" However, 'not entirely irrational' would still turn out, unfortunately for Rory, to mean 'mostly irrational,' for in order to get to the nice place to sit, they would need to walk a considerable distance first. A very considerable distance. In very considerable heat.

"Where are they taking us?" Rory wondered aloud, while in the middle of walking a very considerable distance.

The soldier riding atop his horse next to Rory answered first. "We're taking you to see the prisoner. He requested your presence and it was approved."

"What prisoner? You mean Bela?" Rory replied, and Amy cleared here throat loudly to cover the sound of her stamping his foot.

The soldier looked at them oddly and replied, "The Emperor Napoleon, sir. You are on St. Helena, remember? He reported having seen your vessel sink yesterday..." He paused before adding rather nervously, "…while he was on his walk."

Rory vaguely remembered having discovered that they were on St. Helena. He remembered the telescope some, and he remembered a discussion between the jailers and The Doctor in which this fact was brought up often. Somehow it had all been lost for him over the shock from Bela's true identity.

"We're talking about Napoleon Bonaparte here, yes? The man who is imprisoned on this island? He was on an unaccompanied walk?"

The soldiers went silent for a moment before the one leading the group spoke up: "he sometimes manages to evade his guardians. He is awfully wily sometimes." This last was said with a chuckle, as if the leading guard were trying to get a laugh from his fellow soldiers, though no one joined in.

"And you're taking us, three strangers who have mysteriously appeared on this island, to see the prisoner_ at his request_?"

"Not mysterious strangers, Rory!" said the doctor with a wink, "British traders on our way to the Cape of Good Hope, traders whose fellow shipmates… well, um… disappeared mysteriously before we crashed here on the rocks. Ok, you got the mysterious part right. That's on them. But our credentials check out." And the Doctor waggled his psychic paper at Rory giddily.

"The Emperor may be a prisoner here," said the guard next to Rory, "but he is still a man from the better part of society. We do what we can to be sure the prisoner is secured while still paying due respect to his station in life."

"How British," Amy said, rolling her eyes.

"How much further?" Rory asked.

"Not much further," said the guard, "it's on the other side of this small mountain."

"Oh, of course," thought Rory. "We only have to climb a mountain before we get there. No big deal."

Once the emperor's home on the island came into view, the group could not decide whether it seemed more suitable to imprisonment or comfort. It seemed rather expansive to be a jail cell. From a distance there could be seen sentries holding guard, but there could also be seen considerable activity on the grounds: a trainer with his horse, someone tending a garden in the rear. It seemed quite lavish in many respects, but in others it seemed quite plain. The construction appeared solid and bore a number of architectural and landscaping flourishes that would have seemed frivolous for a structure intended solely for imprisonment, but it was also rather dull, drab even. The guards explained that Napoleon's situation here was more like house arrest than imprisonment. Amy quietly marveled at the disparity between this "prison" and what she knew to be the kinds of conditions other, non-noble prisoners were kept in.

"This is Longwood, the emperor's home on St. Helena," announced one of the guards. Then, looking over his shoulder at Amy, he said, "You see the gardener in the rear? That is his highness the emperor," and as he said this, the gardener stood up from his task and, catching sight of them, raised one hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun while raising the other over his head to wave to the group.

The Doctor, Rory, and Amy waved back.

"A gardener? With a spade? Sounds like my dear old dad, rather than an evil emperor," Rory whispered to The Doctor, who appeared unconvinced.

The leader of the guards looked over his shoulder as he said, "He'll be eager to meet you, I suspect. Visitors here are not uncommon, but new visitors most certainly are."

As the group approached the entrance to Longwood, the emperor stepped out onto the porch ready to greet them. He looked at them interestedly, with a haughty smirk on his face. Amy thought he might actually give away that he knew them if he continued smirking like that, but none of the guards seemed to notice. If they did, it apparently seemed like nothing out of the ordinary to them.

Despite the stifled air of ceremony the guards seemed to exude as they and their prisoners approached Longwood, the introductions were made with shocking informality, but always present was Napoleon's arrogant grin.

"I'm so sorry to hear of the tragedy that befell you and your vessel and of the mystery surrounding the disappearance of your crew," the emperor said, and Amy thought he sounded as if he were trying with difficulty to stifle his laughter. "It is so easy to read the trouble in your faces. No doubt each of you has withdrawn to that place, reserved for the disconsolate and hidden in every man's soul, where you can contemplate your own unique troubles alone. I hope each of you will find a remedy in time. But until then I hope you can find solace in a tour of my home here on the Island. It is humble and its climate is intemperate at times, but we try to make the most of it. Afterward, I hope you will decide to stay and dine with me."

"I'm sure we would be delighted," The Doctor replied, matching Napoleon's exuberance with his own apparent malice and distrust.

"Excellent! I shall give you a moment to rest in my billiards room, and we shall begin the tour in an hour. One of my suite will join you momentarily to provide you with refreshment."

As they were led inside, Rory thought to himself, "I hope there's someplace soft to sit down."

Although Amy had to admit that she, like the Doctor, could not share in Rory's trust of Napoleon, she admired her husband's trusting nature and often hoped, for his sake, that people lived up to his high estimation of them. So much so that on one occasion, sensing that her husband sorely needed a jolt of faith in humanity and noticing that the troubled youths he had volunteered to help were likely too rotten to provide it, she resorted to minor intimidation to see to it that the youth's at least appeared rehabilitated. All the more reason why Amy was rather relieved that, despite certain earlier appearances, Napoleon did actually seem rather docile in his home, even warm and fatherly.

While taking a tour through the Emperor's chambers, Amy noticed a striking bust labeled 'The King of Rome' and remarked on its beauty. The Emperor, who had before then been discussing his bath tub, stopped mid-sentence and thanked her, saying that it was a bust of his son. Then, rosy cheeked and apparently swelling with fatherly pride, he joked, "I'm told I get my good looks from him."

Between rooms Napoleon would occasionally be confronted by children (the sons and daughters of the members of his suite and a few who were visiting with their parents). Rather than treating them curtly or inattentively, as adults sometimes do when children interrupt grown-up matters, the tour would come to a complete stop in order for the emperor to indulge in whatever game the child was playing. For a short stretch of time he even carried one of the children on his shoulders through several more stops on the tour.

One of the last places Napoleon showed them before supper was his garden, which he displayed with almost as much pride as he did the bust of his son. He explained that he had taken up gardening as a way of channeling his occasional frustration at being held captive, but that it had turned into something not just for relief but for sustainment. As he bent over with a spade to tend to one of the items growing there, both Amy and Rory were struck at his likeness to Rory's dad, who would act exactly the same way in his garden.

Rory looked at the Doctor and half-sighed, half-crooned, "Ahh… Dear old dad." The Doctor simply looked disgruntled. Then Napoleon came up and, unexpectedly gregarious, clapped Rory on both his back and his chest and began singing. His voice was dreadful, but he nonetheless charmed the group with the combination of his terrible voice and a silly self-deprecating dance. Everyone began laughing, except The Doctor, who smoldered and whose back was to the group, as if he were in time out. It seemed he was finding some commiseration from the orange tree he was grumbling to.

Finally, it was time for supper, and Napoleon wished to retire to his room for a moment to change. "The members of my suite will be happy to escort you to a spare room if you would like to change as well. There are many pretty dresses available from the wives of my generals - many of which should fit you, lovely Amy. Their husbands would of course be thrilled to accommodate your strapping companions should they like a handsome outfit for supper, too."

Amy, Rory, and the Doctor were escorted to a waiting room near the dining room, though they declined the offer to change their clothes. Rory took the opportunity to grill the Doctor about the emperor. "Seems like a pretty harmless fellow to me, Doctor. I think he's more interested in playing in his garden than taking over the world."

"It could be an act," said the Doctor, "And besides, are you really willing to take _Napoleon Bonaparte_ back to Europe, even if only for a little while, and risk what he could accomplish in that amount of time? Need I remind you of what occurred after he escaped Elba? He could change history."

"Not if you're with us," answered Rory. "I don't think the great Napoleon could outwit you, the great Time Lord." The Doctor grumbled grumpily at this last before Rory said, "You're our insurance, Doctor. If we take him and he tries something, he won't be able to pull it off because you'll be there. If he doesn't try something, then all we've done is make a man's last remaining years a little brighter by helping him to see his family."

Before the Doctor could object, a member of Napoleon's suite entered and announced that it was time to have a seat at the table. It was clear both Rory and the Doctor wished to continue their argument. Both lingered for a moment, leaving their concierge waiting awkwardly. Then, both began to speak at the same time, so Amy shushed them, grabbed them by their arms and pulled them through the doors to the dining hall, smiling to the surprised servant as they went.

As had been the case during most of the preceding evening, the group was surprised by the mixed lavishness and plainness of their supper. Napoleon explained that his cook, another loyal servant who had followed him to the island, had been one of the best in France, and indeed their entire meal was extraordinary, especially the desserts. However, the one diner who seemed least beholden to good decorum was the emperor himself, who, though he was introduced ceremoniously as their host before any of them could have a seat, sat and ate with such apparent boredom and abruptness that the meal seemed almost uncomfortable, as if the emperor were angry. Afterward, one of the dining party explained that the emperor always dined like that, that he really took little enjoyment from a proper supper, and that it often took guests, who only a few hours before were being charmed with his social refinement, off guard.

The only time the emperor seemed engaged in supper was after one of his generals remarked, with obvious pride, on the emperor's studiousness, saying that the emperor spent a great amount of time reviewing his old lost battles to see if there were ways they could have been won. The Doctor, apparently feeling as though he had found a way to win his argument with Rory, asked with an edge, "Of course, don't we all find an occasion to look back on our crimes and wish the suffering we had inflicted had been more focused, more cruel?"

The table was silenced and the emperor examined the Doctor with steely eyes. The Emperor's suite looked to the emperor to see his reaction. Amy and Rory looked to the Doctor. After an uncomfortable silence, the emperor finally spoke to the Doctor, "In life, are there not times when we look back and wish that things could have gone differently? You, sir, are a Doctor. In your line of work are there not patients you look back on that you do not believe you could have saved had you done something slightly different? Do you not look back in regret at what you have done and ask what could have been saved?"

The Doctor chewed his tongue and looked down at the table cloth before responding. "Yes, I do. I look back often and think about those who have suffered because of me, those who have died or been lost. And I look back and feel regret. But I regret what I have done to them. I regret the loss of their uniqueness from the universe. I do not look back for vanity and mourn the loss of it. I do not look back and mourn the loss of opportunities for which I could have further aggrandized myself."

The emperor was silent for a moment and then he said, "Every crime I am guilty of was committed to prevent another which would have been far worse. When we find ourselves in a position of leadership, do we not occasionally find ourselves with difficult decisions to make, ones the outcomes of which appear to be equally deplorable? I do not deny that some of the things I have done were despicable. But I chose those things to prevent the outcome of worse. Sometimes I chose wrongly. And for that I can only beg forgiveness."

The table again was silent. The Doctor stared hard at the emperor, but the emperor only hung his head, never meeting the Doctor's gaze.

"Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, Monsieur Emperor. All you have to do is say you are sorry." Everyone turned to look at the tiny voice that spoke and saw that it belonged to a small boy. Neither the Doctor, Rory, nor Amy remembered the child's name, but they recognized him as the young boy the emperor had carried rambunctiously on his shoulders during their tour. "I think that is all you have to do, Monsieur. Say you are sorry."

The emperor looked quizzically at the child and with obvious emotion whispered, "Yes, I am sorry."

Then the boy looked at the Doctor and said, "Say you are sorry."

The Doctor cleared his throat and, holding his chin to his chest and looking up at the emperor from the tops of his eyes, said, "I am sorry also."

"Indeed, I think we all have things we can say we are sorry for," replied one of Napoleon's officers, "but tonight we are gathered to dine with good company. So I propose a toast to jollity, good friends, and of course, forgiveness." The diners all raised their glasses and replied 'hear hear,' though the doctor and the emperor both appeared distracted.

The rest of the dinner proceeded uneventfully. The emperor resumed his usual bored eating habits, though perhaps with a marked sullenness that was not there before. The Doctor's gloom was substantial until a dessert of small cakes was brought to the table, which prompted obvious delight that the Doctor tried his best to conceal. When the emperor quit the table abruptly, that announced to the group that supper was over. They retired briefly to the billiards room for games and entertainment, but it was soon obvious that everyone was tired from the events of the day, and gradually everyone went off to their rooms to sleep. Rory especially was relieved to finally have some place quiet to lie down.

That night Rory dreamed he was asleep within a cloud – a rain cloud, in fact, but inside he remained perfectly dry. Its insides were like great, overstuffed pillows which surrounded him and kept him warm amidst the comforting gloom. Suddenly, however, just as he felt he was about to reach the zenith of serenity and comfort, a low roiling thunder rumbled him awake. Rory looked drowsily around his room and wondered whether it was about to storm. Then, he heard the thunder again, but this time he realized what it was. It was the sound of heavy boots against the floors outside his door, and with it he heard men's voices calling out to one another. Just as he was about to lift himself from bed and see what was the cause of all the commotion, a soldier burst through his door. "You need to come with me," the soldier said.

"What for?" asked Rory groggily.

"Just come with me, sir."

Rory was taken through the rooms of Longwood swiftly, and he felt as if he were seeing his tour on rewind. In the dim light he saw people running to and fro through the rooms and hallways, and he recognized one of the members of Napoleon's suite being whisked into a room with others inside. Then, he was taken back to the billiards room, where some of the games were still abandoned on the tables from after supper. Amy and the Doctor waited for him there as well.

"What's happening?" Rory asked.

"It seems the emperor, great fatherly figure that he is, has escaped," the Doctor said, sounding as if he were gloating.

"Where has he gone?" Then, Rory lowered his voice. "You don't think he might be off trying to off himself again, do you? I mean, after all that at supper..."

"Somehow I don't think he is contemplating suicide Rory. Why would a man like that..." But as the Doctor spoke Rory put a hand to his chest out of concern for the emperor and felt a peculiar absence. He grasped and groped, but it was gone.

"Doctor."

"What is it?" the Doctor was clearly annoyed that his tirade had been interrupted.

"My key to the TARDIS is missing."

The Doctor barely missed a beat. "You see Rory? What did I tell you?"

"Both of you stop!" Amy interjected. "Doctor, calm down. Don't you see what this means? We have to do something. Are you absolutely sure the emperor took your key, Rory."

Rory remembered when the emperor clapped him on the back and chest back in the garden. "I'm not positive," he said, "but I am fairly sure he swiped it back in the garden."

"What do we do, Doctor?" Amy asked.

The Doctor took a very brief moment to collect himself, almost too short to notice, but Amy saw it. Then he stood up and shouted, "All of you stop now!" The Doctor made the exclamation with such gravitas that the room came to a standstill, but bustling and shouting could still be heard in other rooms and around the house. "I believe I may know where the emperor has gone, and if we do not do something fast to stop him, something terrible may happen. The worst may happen."

One soldier stepped forward and asked, "What is it you know?"

"I know of a transport that was stowed below deck on our ship, and I believe the emperor may have discovered it somehow. He may be planning an escape."

The soldier looked over at one of his comrades and said, "Go. Fetch Sir Cockburn."

Gradually a bevy of Napoleon's keepers entered the room, many of whom neither Amy nor Rory recognized. The one man they did recognize, Sir George Cockburn, seemed the least alarmed. When the last man entered the room and joined the group, Sir Cockburn was the first to speak, "Tell us Doctor…?"

"Just the Doctor will be fine,"

"Very well, Doctor. Tell us you know?"

The Doctor again pulled out his psychic paper and flashed it at the group. Most of the group looked simply bemused, but Sir Cockburn spoke first, "My God! You were no traders. You were on a mission from the King."

"That's right," replied the Doctor, clearly pleased with himself and his psychic paper. "We were transporting top secret cargo. No one was to know. Where we were sailing to and where we left from I cannot even say. But, with extreme reticence, I feel, given the circumstances, that we must divulge to those few of you who must know that we were carrying a transport. One that is very dangerous and very secret. Unfortunately, the emperor may have got wind of it somehow. I am not sure how, but we became aware of this danger only moments ago when our comrade here noticed that his key to the transport, which he carried around his neck at all times, was missing. He believes the emperor has got it."

"But why would he be so careless with a key that so obviously necessitates utmost discretion?"

The Doctor winced and gestured delicately with his index finger toward his head. The group looked back toward Rory and then nodded in agreement to one another. Rory let out a sigh.

"Where is this transport now, Doctor?" one of the men asked.

"I suspect it is west of here, near the shore where we crashed."

"The emperor was last seen headed west," replied one of the men at the table.

"Then I suspect we should start heading in that direction," Sir Cockburn said. "Doctor, I would like for you to lead the way."

"Certainly, sir."

And with that the group gathered itself along with a few soldiers and began heading west toward the sea, with Rory reluctantly bringing up the rear. He wondered what would happen when the group finally caught up to the emperor.

The group made their way by torch light in the direction of the shore. Soldiers moved ahead and to the sides of the group, finding higher ground in an effort to spot the emperor from a distance. The trip was made mostly in silence, until finally Rory spoke.

"What will happen to the emperor when we find him?"

The men who made up Napoleon's keepers looked around at each other for a moment. At first Rory thought they were afraid to tell him what would happen or that maybe they felt guilty. After the silence lasted longer than he expected, he noticed the genuine looks of bemusement on their faces. He realized that they hadn't really been thinking about what would happen, and that the obvious worry in his voice had caught them off guard.

"More than likely he has already beaten us back to Longwood," Sir Cockburn said. Then he chuckled, "He's probably waiting for us to return, sitting there hoping to make us look like fools. That is usually what these escapes amount to. We probably wouldn't even be out here with such numbers if he hadn't been so sneaky about it this time. Plus, you and your friends have given us some worry with this story of a top secret transport from the King. I do not know what kind of transport could be so secret and dangerous that so few people could be allowed to know about it, but the thought of it falling into the emperor's hands is quite troublesome. Hopefully you've only misplaced the key, my friend, and all of this worry is for naught."

"I hope so, too," replied Rory.

The group walked a long for a few moments longer in silence, and then Rory spoke again.

"Do you think he is evil, all of you who see him everyday? From the sound of your stories he sounds harmless, like nothing but a jokester. On our tour he did not seem much more dangerous than that."

Sir Cockburn again replied for the group. "I truly do not know, son. He does sometimes seem quite ridiculous. Often times he is very charming and congenial. But I wonder if all of it is not an act. I wonder if this unpredictableness is not practiced, something he wants for us to grow accustomed to. Having us fooled like that gives him some kind of power over us, of course."

The admiral seemed to have more that he wished to say, but he was cut off as one of the scouts shouted toward the group with alarm. Just then the trumpeting sound of the TARDIS could be heard. The sound suddenly grew much louder as The TARDIS crested the rock face upon which the scout was standing and bowled him over, barely missing him. The air was suddenly filled with gasps and shouts, and everywhere people began running for cover as the TARDIS dived bombed directly toward the group. It began whizzing and whirring in every direction, narrowly avoiding collisions with both people and rock faces. In a moment it began to look as if it were going to take off into space, growing higher and higher as the group looked on with alarm. For a moment its movements were inscrutable it was so high and so tiny. And everyone, especially the Doctor and his companions, worried whether the emperor had indeed learned how to pilot the craft. Then, just as suddenly as it had taken off, it seemed to grow in size but not in position.

"Oh, dear," said the Doctor, "It's headed right for us!"

Everyone began to run for cover, but almost immediately the TARDIS flew just over head, narrowly missing a collision with several people on the ground. This time however, the ship could apparently no longer stay aloft. It bumped to the ground, fell to its side, and then skidded a long distance before screeching and sparking to a halt some hundred meters or so away from the group.

As soon as everyone was sure that the craft was no longer a danger, people began running towards the craft, with the Doctor and Sir Cockburn in the lead. As they came within a few meters of the ship, the door burst open, and the emperor managed to roll out on his side, coughing and spluttering as he had done on the beach.

"Somebody... please," he whimpered, and Rory rushed up next to him. After checking his eyes for a concussion, Rory signaled to the others to approach.

"He will need assistance getting back to Longwood," Rory said. One of the guards standing next to the Doctor rushed off and returned moments later with a stretcher being carried between two other guards. They helped the emperor on to it, careful not to disturb his head, and began carrying him to a horse which could transport him back to the estate.

Soon a number of guards began crowding around the TARDIS, attempting to get a better look at it, but before they could get too close, Amy jumped between them and it and shut the door to the TARDIS, which stood slightly ajar. "Move along," she said professionally, "Nothing to see here."

Gradually, with the atmosphere of a long, boozy party being broken up, the soldiers and napoleon's keepers began moving back in the direction of Longwood. From above, the lights from their torches formed lines extending outward from the crash site of the TARDIS like rows of ants around the opening of a colony. As they all moved back to the estate, above their murmuring and footsteps, the weak voice of one could be heard above it all.

"It's bigger. Everything is. It's so much bigger on the inside."

With the emperor back at Longwood, the estate bustled and hurried itself back to normalcy. The servants rearranged the rooms, and food could be smelled coming from the kitchen. The emperor had been examined thoroughly the night before and had been determined not to be seriously injured, though an inexplicable ague took him over as the night gradually turned to morning.

As the dawn gave way to morning, the Doctor, Rory, and Amy sat looking at the emperor's garden. Each was obviously groggy, but something compelled them not to go to sleep. Finally the Doctor spoke. With a strange lameness, as if the Doctor had misread the situation, he said, "TARDIS'll be fine," and neither Rory nor Amy responded, cementing the awkwardness, as if the Doctor hadn't needed to say anything. Another long silence passed before Rory spoke.

"You know, Doctor, back on the beach you had only been able to give us an estimate of the date. After we were captured I never bothered to look at a calendar. I never even considered asking someone, even though, given our story, it would be entirely plausible that we were unsure of the date."

The Doctor and Amy turned to look at Rory, but both seemed quite bleary.

"I looked at the calendar after we arrived back early this morning. It is January 1821. The emperor will be gone in only a few months. May of 1821, I believe. The fever he has now maybe the one which spells his decline."

Another long silence passed, and Rory said, "We still don't know why he was trying to escape, right? Maybe he had been leaving for Europe to see his family. Maybe he would have come back. Or maybe it wouldn't have even mattered, given the date and his fever."

For a moment the Doctor appeared ready to object, but just then Amy put her arm around Rory's shoulder, and the Doctor could see that Rory did indeed seem very upset.

"I don't know, Rory," He said, "I really don't know."

Just then Sir Cockburn and a number of other men from the night before approached.

"Doctor, we are here to thank you and your assistants for what you did last night. We appreciate the risk you took in telling us about your transport. Without your candor we may have had another Hundred Days on our hands. I invite you to dine with us this evening, so that you may be properly feted."

"I am afraid I must decline. My assistants and I must be going." The Doctor pointed with his head behind him, indicating that they needed to be getting back to the TARDIS.

"I understand, Doctor. You have the King's work to perform. I wish you luck." With that, Sir Cockburn and the rest of the gentlemen saluted the Doctor, Rory, and Amy, and the three moved off in the direction of the TARDIS. Amy, barely awake and adrift in her own thoughts, wondered idly whether they would ever get a real vacation. Deep down she hoped not.


End file.
